


Seven Years

by vials



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, this is more angsty than shippy thanks to who i am as a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 00:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15545580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: Shortly after Harry's death, Eggsy and Merlin stay up and get drunk. Some nights are made for accepting things otherwise incomprehensible, and this night is one such night.





	Seven Years

“There was no real time to think about it,” Merlin said, his voice heavy. “You know what I mean. How quickly everything happened, and then we had to clean the mess up ourselves. Now it’s all still, and I feel like it’s too late.” He shook his head, his hand limply around the glass of whiskey in his hand; the bottle it came from, sitting on the coffee table, was almost empty. “But that’s stupid, isn’t it? You can’t put a time limit on these things.”

Eggsy, for his part, wasn’t faring much better. He sat in the other armchair, limbs equally as splayed, perhaps equally as drunk but it was difficult to tell by that point. His eyes were slightly glazed, his head feeling too heavy, and it took him several moments to process what Merlin had said. When it finally settled, he sat up a little straighter, clearing his throat.

“It is a little bit stupid, mate,” he said, managing a small smile, and Merlin looked at him, his mouth moving as though he might return it, had he the energy. “But you know what these things are like. It would be a lot easier if they had a set… I don’t know, _pattern_ or something. But grief ain’t like that. It can hit you whenever it wants.”

He was thinking of Harry, of course, but also his father. Harry’s death was still fresh; the wound was still open and would be for some time, and he and Merlin were both still reeling in the aftermath of it. But his father’s death had taught Eggsy that even when the dust settled, their work wasn’t going to be done. 

“I sometimes wonder,” he continued, the alcohol having loosened his tongue, “if it wouldn’t be better for it to always be like the first person you lost. You know, when you don’t know what grief is all about. Because it’s all a nasty surprise, but at least it’s a surprise. You don’t know what to expect so you have no expectations. But when you lose other people, you kind of know what you’re in for. You know how long it’s going to be. You know it’s never going to go away.”

There was a heavy silence, and then Merlin sighed, sitting up a little straighter so he could take a sip from his drink. “You think you can get used to everything,” he said miserably, “but you never do. Some things just don’t go away.”

“It gets _easier_ ,” Eggsy said, almost hopeful. “We say we can’t put a time limit on these things, but they say it’s about seven years, innit?”

“Seven years?” Merlin asked, looking at him. “Until what?”

“Until life returns to normal after a loss,” Eggsy said. “Or at least, that’s what I got told when Dad died. I can’t remember who told me. Maybe Mum, or maybe some psychologist or something. I don’t know. But I remember that’s what they say. It’s crazy for seven years, and then after that most of the grieving is done and you start to move forward again.”

“Well,” Merlin said, pausing to take another long drink, “that’s depressing.”

“That’s what I said,” Eggsy said, snorting, and took a sip from his own glass. The alcohol had long since stopped burning his throat as it went down, and he wondered just how drunk he was. Was he even going to be able to stand? “Everyone else seemed to say it in such a positive way, but I thought it was horrible. _Seven years?_ And then things _start_ moving forward, so man, you could have even more time to wait on top of it all.” He shook his head. “Nightmare.”

They fell silent again. Somewhere in the room, a clock was ticking. It was going to be getting light soon, but neither of them felt much like going to bed. The thought was a terrible one: having to drag themselves to their feet and somehow find their way to a bed, the process of falling asleep while drunk which, in their experience, was always a terrible one. Not to mention the night spent tossing and turning, which they did even without the added interference of drink, but which would be made a lot worse by the constant discomfort. The room spinning, the nausea rising in waves, and nothing to distract them from it apart from the thoughts that had driven them to drink in the first place. 

Thoughts like these seemed to make the rest of the time ahead of them stretch on endlessly. Eggsy remembered the helplessness from the long days and weeks after his father’s death: the not understanding, the constantly asking when his father would return, the final realisation of what his mother meant when she had said he was _never coming back_. And of course the state she had been in; Eggsy had never felt more useless in his life. Even at that young age the future had seemed to grind to a halt, leaving them both stagnating with nowhere to turn and no escape from any of it. He felt the same way now, and looking at Merlin’s grim expression, he knew he felt the same way. Of course, Merlin was no stranger to losing people – it was part of the risk when one did what he did – but he had been lucky to escape a loss as catastrophic as this. There were friends and then there were people like Harry; people that would only show up once in a lifetime and once they were gone there was nothing for it but to adjust to a life without them, in the full knowledge that one would always remember what they missed. The days and weeks stretched on; the months and years seemed incomprehensible. _Seven years_ , Eggsy had said. How the hell were they supposed to fathom that?

“God,” Eggsy muttered, leaning back in his chair and tilting his head up to look at the ceiling. “I kind of wish we hadn’t drank so much.”

“You and me both,” Merlin agreed, though he drained the rest of his glass before he set it down on the table. “But god knows what else we’re supposed to do. It’s a long night. There are more to come.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, with a small grin, “but we can’t do this every night, can we? That’s called alcoholism.”

Merlin managed a weak snort. “Sometimes it doesn’t seem so unappealing.”

“You think? I don’t think I could stand feeling like this every day.”

“Can’t get hungover if you don’t sober up,” Merlin pointed out. “Though regrettably, I think it’s about time we did that.”

Still neither of them moved. Eggsy finished the last of his drink, the last sip of alcohol making his stomach turn. He supposed he should go and find them some water, and perhaps something starchy to eat, but this was still Harry’s house in his mind and it probably always would be; the idea of going into _Harry’s_ kitchen and eating _Harry’s_ food seemed unreal to him, and if he thought about it in any seriousness he came to the conclusion that really, Merlin probably had more of a right than he had to go in there and make himself at home. Hell, if Merlin hadn’t already been settled in some cosy flat somewhere, probably with more technological power than the military of a medium-sized country, Eggsy would have offered the house to him instead. 

“God,” Merlin said suddenly, and Eggsy looked to see he was hunched over, his head buried in his hands. “Fuck this. Honestly. Fuck it. What the hell are we doing, sitting around and acting like this is going to get any easier? I don’t see the bloody point. You know,” he added, looking up at Eggsy now, “it’s one thing to lose people that you know, or that you kind of know, or that you like, or that you see as a friend – people in that kind of circle, it sucks. It does. It really sucks, and god knows I know how much it sucks. But – and I don’t mean to sound callous – I could envision myself getting over that. Even people I had lost on missions; even people I might have lost because I made the wrong choice, or didn’t have enough information, or reacted too slowly. God, it was awful, but I could envision a day where I didn’t feel so consumed by it. I could see a time where I looked back on it and I had learned from it, or I could remember them fondly and with none of the baggage. But with _this?_ ” He swept a hand around and Eggsy wasn’t sure if he meant the situation, or Harry, or both. “What am I supposed to do with _this?_ ”

Eggsy gave a small smile. “I don’t know, Merlin.”

“I mean, I know logically I just wait,” Merlin said bitterly. He practically spat out the words, and Eggsy was stunned to hear him speak in such a way. He had riled Merlin up before, of course, and he had heard Merlin agitated, or worried, or annoyed. But he had never heard him so _bitter_ ; so consumed by pain that it seemed to force its way out of him in any way it could. For a moment, Eggsy was reminded, very unpleasantly, of the look on some of his mother’s various boyfriends’ faces; that glint in their eye, that snarl on their lips, that smell of booze. For a second Eggsy wanted to run from the room, his heart thudding in his chest, but he forced himself to calm down.

_It’s just Merlin,_ he reminded himself. _He’s upset, but he’s not angry – not at_ you, _anyway._

“Logically,” Merlin continued, “I know that’s all you can do. Like you said, seven years. Seven years of living in limbo until your systems catch up to the update and you can start moving forward again – with glitches, of course. So I know that there’s an end to this part of it, even if it’s just _this part_. But if I don’t think about it logically? You understand that I am a very logical person, so this seems alien for me to say, but the truth is that _doesn’t_ seem logical. How the bloody _hell_ can such a thing be logical? In seven years things will move on? I’m sure they will, but it will _not_ be in a direction I want it to go!”

Eggsy didn’t remember standing up, but he realised he must have done when he noticed that the room was spinning around him rather violently. He took a step, swaying dangerously, but managed to make it the short distance across the room before collapsing heavily onto his knees, right in front of where Merlin was hunched over, his head in his hands and – Eggsy realised to his horror – likely crying.

“Hey,” Eggsy said, for a moment not knowing what to do. “Hey, man. Come on. It’ll be alright. I know that’s cliché as fuck, but it will be. It won’t ever be the _same_ , but it does get better. Honest.”

Merlin took a shuddering breath; when he looked up his eyes were damp, but he looked thankfully more composed than Eggsy had expected. He didn’t know what he would have done if Merlin had gone to pieces any more than he already had; Eggsy could feel that he was barely holding on as it was, and he knew himself well enough to know that if he let go of all that control now he would likely never get it back. Harry had caught him in the long and devastating fallout following his father’s death, but there was no Harry to save him from this.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin muttered, pushing his glasses up and wiping a hand across his face. “Good grief. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

His glasses slipped back into place and for a moment he looked a little more like himself. They looked at one another for several long seconds, and once again it seemed as though time stretched out infinitely, millions of nights like this one, all the same attempts to escape and the slow, terrible realisation that such a thing was impossible. This was their new reality, and they had no choice but to live it; they each understood, but travelled the same path alone. Eggsy had learned the hard way that even two people at the same level of closeness to a person would grieve differently; he and his mother had grieved for his father differently, and while she should have been the only person to understand him she had lost a husband and Eggsy a father. Looking at Merlin he knew it to be the same situation now, and the thought was an unwelcome one. Quite suddenly he felt entirely alone, even though he was mere inches from Merlin. 

Neither of them were sure who kissed the other first. Looking back, they were each equally certain that, had it been them, they hadn’t meant to do it. One moment they were looking at one another, and the next they were kissing – not a hungry kiss, nothing born out of lust or drunkenness, but a more tender kind of kiss, one that seemed to be born out of that rush of loneliness more than anything else. Here they were, the two of them, drunk, alone, Harry’s house as silent as the tomb around them, and they felt – at least for that moment – like they were the only people in the world that had known him. Any declaration of this understanding would be better than nothing. 

Or perhaps it was something else entirely. Who could tell, when they were this emotional, this drunk? They pulled apart as abruptly as they had kissed and the silence was heavy but not awkward; looking back, Eggsy would say it had been more _confused_ than anything else, and Merlin would have partially agreed but personally have gone with _surprised_. 

Eggsy leaned back and cleared his throat. Merlin stared at him for a moment more, and then slumped back in his chair. There was another beat of silence. The room seemed to spin again, and Eggsy realised that he really needed a drink – a normal one, something like water, even if it did mean going into Harry’s kitchen and looking through Harry’s things. 

“Do you… need anything?” he forced himself to say. “Water? Food?”

Merlin shook his head and gave a small sigh. “No, thanks. If you don’t mind, I might just stay here the night, though.”

“By all means,” Eggsy said, waving a hand. He stood up and the floor pitched under him again. “Are you sure you don’t need…?”

“I’m fine,” Merlin said, a little firmer now, and once again Eggsy cleared his throat.

“Alright,” he said, stepping unsteadily to the door. “I’ll… I’ll leave you alone.”

He found he had been holding his breath as he crossed the room and stepped out into the hall; it rushed out of him and he practically gasped, his heart suddenly thudding, the alarm reaching him even through his drunkenness. He stumbled to the kitchen, finding himself hoping he wouldn’t remember it. His hands were trembling as he fumbled around in the kitchen, getting the water, and back in the living room Merlin’s hands were trembling too. He looked at the twitching fingers for a long time, and then clenched his hands against the arms of the chair.


End file.
